Once upon a time, in a land called Eighteen Months Ago, a new games console called "Wii" was announced. With its easily manipulated name, unusual motion-sensing controls and standard definition visuals, many onlookers instantly chose to hoot and holler at this most unconventional piece of hardware. Amidst much snickering, God-awful puns and subtle anatomical jokes were cracked.
Fast-forward a year and a half, and it is Nintendo that is laughing longest, loudest, and yes, hardest. Earlier today, the company published a half year profits forecast that practically glowed with positivity: profit is expected to treble for this fiscal year, the previously mocked Wii is expected to sell 17.5m units by March 31, and Ninty has raised expected software sales during this fiscal year by 35%.
Translation: Nintendo is neck-deep in lovely, filthy lucre. And to think both Wii Fit and Brawl are yet to touch down in stores.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-25-2007 @ 2:32PM
AzaMcWazza said...
And while all those people were snickering and jeering, I was buying stock.
This is great news for Nintendo. They need to keep some momentum now. We've had a month of good news, so they need to step it up a notch with more announcements of a hard drive, or officially announce the DS flash cart and other features for those two consoles so we see a bit of a roadmap for the machines.
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10-25-2007 @ 2:41PM
bhengh said...
It is fun reading the misguided comments on that 18-month-old Joystiq post.
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10-25-2007 @ 2:51PM
Jeremy said...
I'm glad to see Nintendo riding on the top. After all the years they have been pushed down they deserve to ride the wave again.
@1 I agree they need to make some huge announcements but I had rather see them go with using a USB flash drive over a hard drive and also they need to give Wii owners voice chat. These things would give developers more to work with which means better 3rd party support and also happier consumers.
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10-25-2007 @ 3:01PM
Chris said...
@Jeremy
Yep, if Reggie wants to make good on his promise to transform entertainment, the Wii will have to expand its community feature set in a major way. Voice chat is one of them.
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10-25-2007 @ 3:47PM
LeChuck said...
With all the criticisms against Wii, some valid some not, there's NO denying it's one of the biggest successes the gaming industry has seen in a long time or ever. It's well deserved as Nintendo earned it by following Scrooge McDuck's own philosophy, "Work smarter, not harder."
Instead of spending all their R&D on shoving more gigs and flops into a box to fight Sony and MS for the same gamers they went in a different direction and appealed to all those people who'd been ignoring games since the NES heyday. It was a gamble, but they obviously hit the jackpot.
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10-25-2007 @ 5:55PM
Marrvia said...
I'm happy for Nintendo for the success of Wii. But I just hope that it doesn't become cause a tread in gaming where it becames more about profitability and less about raising the bar in terms of graphics. I would rather see the next Microsoft and Sony consoles with way better graphics and be more expensive than consoles with slightly better graphics but cheap. I know graphics are definitely not the most important part of games, but I love seeing graphics getting better and better.
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10-25-2007 @ 8:59PM
D. said...
I agree with post #1. It's been amazing to see Nintendo's turnaround. Seeing them keep all of their fans happy will be even more spectacular. Nintendo needs to make sure that the console keeps a level of freshness about it.
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10-25-2007 @ 10:45PM
Moofree said...
You mean "Enhanced Definition" visuals.
At least it's progressive scan!
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